WATCH as Venezuelan president presents annual report to the National Constituent Assembly

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro presented his annual management report for 2017 before the National Constituent Assembly at the Federal Legislative Palace in Caracas on Monday.

Maduro stated, “Even the White House, the State Department knows very well, the Bolivarian revolution in 2017 regained its mobilization capacity and has returned to be the electoral majority for now, forever, for a long time.”

On December 11, the country’s ruling socialist party won by a landslide in the mayoral elections. According to the data from the National Electoral Council, 47 percent of those eligible to vote participated in the election and the ruling party won in more than 300 of the 335 municipalities throughout the country.

The ruling party also won the governorship of Zulia state, in the west of the country. The main opposition parties, Justice First, Popular Will and Democratic action, boycotted the vote, claiming the election system was biased and designed to keep Maduro in power.

Maduro announced that opposition parties that have boycotted this year’s mayoral election will no longer be allowed to vote or run in the 2018 presidential elections.

Maduro said: “Even the White House, the State Department knows very well, the Bolivarian revolution in 2017 regained its mobilization capacity and has returned to be the electoral majority for now, forever, for a long time. The Bolivarian revolution settled these difficulties to return to triumph with the popular vote.”

Elsewhere in Venezuela, two police officers died after a shootout with a terrorist. Full details can be read here.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies. He has an MA in International Relations and is interested in Great Power Rivalry as well as the International Relations and Political Economy of the Middle East and Latin America.